October 25.docx

3
Pages

111
Views

Unlock Document

School

University of Toronto St. George

Department

Religion

Course

RLG100Y1

Professor

Sol Goldberg

Semester

Fall

Description

October 25, 12
- Venereal delectation – Sexual delight/pleasure
- Ven coming from Venus
- ^^attached to witches (women) having sex with Satan
- Russel talked about 4 main beliefs
- From the 12 C onward we see an increasing fear of the devil
among the Christian theologians – the devil is becoming more
active in human affairs and more violent against human beings. –
An intellectual tradition which focuses academic inquiry on the devil.
– becoming a more regular topic.
- Rising among learned elites (clerical elites).
- These fears and concerns about the devil were not very
predominant among the lay-people.
- Looked at accusations against neighbors
- The accusations of inquisitors – construct of the pact – infanticide,
cannibalism.
- Accusations from laypeople – he killed my cow, made my neighbor
sick, etc…
- Different social classes have different beliefs
- Being produced by people whose job it was to hunt heretics.
- “a gradual transformation from sorcery to heresy to diabolical
witchcraft”
- Transforming ordinary sorcery to diabolical witchcraft
- Pact and the collaborative notion of heretics.
th
- A pope (Gregory the 9 )asserted that secular rulers would have to
help point out people who are heretics or witches – outlawing
heresy spreads to the public laws
- The church can take away people’s property
- Papacy claiming the job of inquisitor – opens up its own office of
inquisition – hand-picked inquisitors.
- Introducing the death penalty to witches/heretics
- John 22 nd– Sorcery is now being defined as making pact with
demons and it is heresy.
- End of 14thC – Performing a ritual becomes an act of terrible
danger and violence which places the whole community at risk fro
the devil.
- Problem before the 12thC
- At the end of the 15thC – the stage for the witch crazes for the next
2 C’s have been set
- We have a clearly defined crime and criminal and we have all of the
institutional apparatus to deal with the crime.
- Malleus Malefecarum – intended to be read by secular magistrates
and papal inquisitors. – to discover how to punish and find out who
witches are. (manual by inquisitors) - Authors of the Malleus are 2 Dominican monks – Jacob Springer
and Henry Kramer
- Received an authorization by Pope Innocent 8 th– to spread these
beliefs to German regions
- Summis Desiderantes – published as part of the Malleus
- Issue of jurisdiction
- They were told that they could not interfere with the laws of the
land then the local authorities would intervene.
- A strong clue that there were clerical and civil officials who did not
share the same ideas that Kramer and Springer compelled
- The Malleus has 3 major sections
- 1) Ques